Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Delphine did not handle him with such reverence. She handled him with appetite and lust and her own way of showing him how much she wanted him in return. Her hands gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer. Her mouth found the scar beneath his collarbone and pressed against it, open, her tongue tracing the raised tissue. Her hips rose to meet his body, and the motion carried no shyness and no interest in receiving less than what he could give.
He had been careful with Delia because Delia had required care. She had been delicate in her want, approaching desire through tenderness, and he had met her there and held back as needed. He’d not yearned for more, his love for her was rooted in giving her whatever she wanted, whatever made her happy.
Delphine required no holding back. She met his body with her own and matched his pressure and pulled for more when he offered less. Her hands in his hair tightened when his mouth found the hollow of her throat again and now, settled between her legs, the moment was upon them. His restraint was threadbare. Bastien’s own heart beat was loud in his ears and knowing she wanted him to be his true self, unrestrained, was heady and surreal, causing him pause, but only for a moment. Her leg wrapped his hip and drew him against her, and the demand in the gesture reached through his skin and broke the last of his restraint open. A century without her wrapped around him, without this connection was worth every blissful moment that followed.
He entered her, and her breath left her body in a rush that landed against his ear. Her fingers dug into the muscle of his back. Her spine arched, lifting her chest against his as they both gasped. Light prickled behind his eyes, something more than just physical pleasure, but couldn’t be explained. He stilled there.
Delphine gripped his shoulders, and begged, “More, Bastien. Give me everything you’ve been holding back. I want all of it.”
The physical desire for her unleashed. He moved inside her then, harder and faster, the pace far surpassing the rhythm they had established through months of circling each other—steady, intentional, building. Now they were frantic to share themselves in this intimacy. Bastien could barely recall what it felt like, and he doubted he’d ever experienced this kind of pleasure in his mortal life. He grunted her name, burying his face in her neck. Her hips answered each motion with such enthusiasm his vision narrowed to the place where their bodies connected and the expression on her face. Their mouths crashed together violently, untamed, and she called his name as he felt her gripping around him.
She was present. The word surfaced in his mind. Delphine was present in her body, in this bed, in this act. Delia—for all her warmth, all her love, all the centuries of soul connection that had drawn them together—had given herself through tenderness, through the careful negotiation of desire that characterized her. Delphine gave herself through will. Through choice. She had assessed what she wanted and refused to accept less.
This was not a replacement. The understanding moved through him with a clarity that the past could not distort. Delphine was not Delia returned. She was Delphine arrived. And what she offered him in this bed had no predecessor. His thoughts of Delia were pushed away, and he too, became truly present.
This realization caused his pace changed. His hands gripped her hips and held her at the angle that drew sound from her throat, and the sound traveled his spine and pooled at the base of his skull. Her fingers found his face, cupping his jaw, pulling his mouth to hers. He continued to slam into her, hoping she felt as amazing as he continued to unravel completely.
He pressed his face into her neck again as the pressure in his back intensified. Heat spread outward from the space between his shoulders, radiating through the muscle and into the air behind him.
What occupied his arm lived cold at its center, broadcasting outward with mechanical precision. This bore no resemblance to it.
Delphine’s nails raked his shoulders. Her hips met his with a force that collapsed the remaining distance between restraint and release. Her breath caught, held, and broke against his ear in a sound that carried his name and nothing else.
The pressure in his back crested. Unlike anything that had occurred before.
Heat tore outward from between his shoulder blades. The air behind him distorted—not visibly, not in any way that belonged to the physical world, but in a register that occupied the space between perception and reality. The temperature in the room spiked. The shadows on the wall, thrown by the streetlight through the live oak branches, stretched and darkened and expanded beyond the geometry the light could produce.